Liberty Magazine, March 1989
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Special Feature: Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy Murray Rothbard on the eight dreary _M_ar_ch_19_89_' -F-ou-rD-ol-lar-s years of the Age of Reagan "'Dear is· Cou:ntryJ but Liberty is dearer stirf. 11 - Latin Proverb "Perhaps the most important economic treatise 0/our time" - WALL STREET JOURNAL Human Action is the most compelling case for economic freedom ever made. It is the free market answer to Marx's Das Kapital and Keynes's General Theory. And it is fascinating. Mises is a cool logician, our greatest economic scholar, a passionate lover of freedom - and a 'passionate hater of those who would take it away from us. Thus Human Action is the economic masterwork of our age - and, at the same time, a soaring hymn to human freedom. Mises has nothing but scorn for the phony "compassion" of the Marxians and Keynesians - because he sees how their theories actually breed suffering. One by one, he sweeps away the dangerous fallacies of liberalism and socialism. Finally, this book is a warning. Just as man ignores the law of gravity at HUMAN ACTION his peril, so too the immutable laws of economics. Triggers an Explosion of Critical Acclaim As Mises aptly puts it: "I think that Human Action is unquestionably the "It rests with men whether they will make most powerful product of the human mind in our proper use of the rich treasure with which time, and I believe it will change human life for the this knowledge [of economics] provides better during the coming centuries as profoundly as them or whether they will leave it unused. Marxism has changed all our lives for the worse in this century." - Rose Wilder Lane But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warn "If any single book can turn the ideological tide that ings, they will not annul economics; they has been running in recent years so heavily toward will stamp our society and the human statism, socialism, and totalitarianism, Human Action race." is that book. It should become the leading text of everyone who believes in freedom, in individualism, and in a free-market economy." - Henry Hazlitt The economic masterpiece of the "An arsenal of fact and logic for those at war with the century - in an edition worthy Marxists and Fabians." - Chicago Daily News of its c()ntents "Dr. von Mises has made a tremendous contribution to economic thinking in a world that thinks only Revised and updated by the author himself D economics." - Vermont Royster . Massive 924 pages D Comprehensive 21-page "[Mises] offers a combination of great scholarship index D Entirely reset - NOT to be and the rare ability to make an abstruse economic sub confused with any previous edition ject interesting." - Lawrence Fertig "The finest economic treatise of this generation." Raymond Moley How to get this $49.95 masterwork FREE ~------------------------ ----------------------iI•• How the Club Works CONSERVATIVE IIIBOOK CWB Every 4' weeks (13 times a year) you get a free copy of the Club Bulletin, which offers you the Featured Selection plus a good choice of Alternates - all of interest to conservatives. * 15 OAKLAND AVENUE. HARRISON, N.V. 10528 If you want the Featured Selection, do nothing. It will come automatically. * If you don't want the Featured Selection, or you do want an Alternate, indicate your wishes on the handy Please aqcept my membership in the Club and send me, free and card enclosed with your Bulletin and return it by the deadline postpaid, 'Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus, Human Action, in the date. * The majority of Club books will be offered at 20-50% $49.95 Third Edition. I agree to buy 4 additional books at regular Club discounts, plus a charge for shipping and handling. * As soon as you bUy and pay for 4 books at regular Club prices, prices over the next 2 years. I also agree to the Club rules spelled out your membership may be ended at any time, either by you or . in this coupon. LIB - 2 by the Club. * If you ever receive a Featured Selection Name _ without having had 10 days to decide if you want it, you may return it at Club expense for full credit. * Good service. No computers! * The Club will offer regular Superbargains, mostly at 70-90% discounts plus shipping and hand:ing. Address _ Superbargains do NOT count toward fulfilling your Club obligation, but do enable you to buy fine books at giveaway Zip _ L prices. *. Only one membership per household. City -- State -----------_ Contents March 1989 Volume 2, Number 4 Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy by Murray N Rothbard, page 13 A Kinder, Gentler Nation? Fear and Loathing in Canada's Elections by Michael!. Krauss, page 23 Guns and Guilt by Allan Levite, page 29 What Do You Do When Your Mother Asks You To Kill Her? by M. H. Endres, page 31 An Environmentalist Contra Rothbard by Daniel M. Karlan, page 35 What If Everything We Know About Safety Is Wrong? by John Semmens and Dianne Kresich, page 37 You Can Go Home Again, But ... by Tibor R. Machan, page 44 The End of Political Activism by Jeffrey Friedman, page 47 Departments • Reflections The Editors "Editorialize," page 9 Reviews David Ramsay Steele on the"Abolition of Work," page 51 Ethan O. Waters on Robert LeFevre, page 57 Stephen Cox on Mario Vargas Llosa, page 61 Jeffrey Tucker on Noam Chomsky, page 63 Charles Curley on Libertarian Diversity, page 64 Letters, page 4 Corrections and Amplifications, page 8 Bob Ortin's "Burons/' page 12 Booknotes, page 67 Classified Advertisements, page 68 Contributors, page 69 Bush ticket ("Better Dukakis Than Bush" . L e tters Liberty, Nov 1988). I inferred from his ' statement of support for the Reagan- [ ] Bush ticket in 1984 that he hadperrna- ~=============================~_nently abandoned the LP. I am happy to see Hospers return to the LP, and note the refreshing contrast of Hospers' path Mere Lines on a Ballot ic radicalism, based on the idea that free to the reverse course of the demented Justin Raimondo's analysis of the fu dom, unqualified, offers the hope of un members of LROC. It is strikingthat tility ofthe Libertarian Party ("Assessing precedented wealth and opportunity to Justin Raimondo, attacking the Paul cam Campaign '88," Liberty, Jan 1989), and people ofall socioeconomic back paign for its alleged trafficking with the third party efforts in general, is right on grounds, as well as the prospect of solv likes of Pat Robertson and the New the mark. A few years ago I researched ing many of our most persistent social Right, rushes to embrace the Republican the history of political parties in ills. Else the LP will certainly continue to Party, which is presumably free of such America, and reached the same conclu toil in obscurity, if it continues to toil at contamination! sions. That was after I had spent three all. G. Duncan Williams years working on Libertarian Party cam Jorge Amador Melvin, Iowa paigns. Oh, well. Forest Grove, Penn. Quit Picking on Ron There's a solid legal reason behind A Vote For Evil the persistent failure of third parties in I was disappointed with the criti this century. "Progressive" era reforms The attitudes expressed by Mr cisms of the Ron Paul campaign by of election laws in effect nationalized the Moulton ("Why I Will Vote for George Russell Means ("Assessing the 1988 major political parties late in the last cen Bush," Liberty, Nov 1988) represent the Campaign," Liberty, Jan 1989). Means tury. The parties are defined and con most maddening ofobstacles to faulted Paul for three things: failure to trolled by various state and federal Libertarian Party candidates. By that I run national TV commercials, failure to legislation. mean the attitudes that might be called get on all fifty state ballots and failure to The major parties are not private or "Sunday Libertarianism," and which raise $5 million. ganizations. They cannot exclude any translate into, "1'11 walk and talk like a The lack of national TV is probably a one, fascist, communist, or ignoramus Libertarian but I won't vote like one." result of too little money. But the Paul from running under their ballot labels. For anyone who thinks I'm too harsh campaign did produce and show com The parties are not "parties" at all; they with Mr. Moulton I suggest a compari mercials in some cities. are state-eontrolled lines on a ballot. son between his "I Like Bush" article As for 50 state ballots, I think the Should any third party gain "major and the one bearing his initials on page 5 record shows the Paul campaign tried party" status, which requires 5% ofthe of that same issue ("0ne nation, undeliv very hard and came very close. Perhaps vote in many states, that party will also erable"). Herein some guy named Robert if Russell Means had kept his promise to be taken over by the state. It will no long Kuttner is soundly trashed (and rightly work on ballot drives among Native er be able to control what candidates run so) for defending the U.S. Postal monop Americans in South Dakota, Arizona and under its banner. So if the Libertarian oly. And editor Moulton makes no bones Florida, it would have freed up enough resources for the Paul campaign to finish Party dodges its likely death by failure, it about the extent of Kuttner's perfidious the job they nearly finished anyway. faces death by success. ness; we are informed that Kuttner's atti While it is true that the Paul cam There is no reason why a serious can tudes "come close to actual evil." Right paign failed to raise the $5 million that it didate should put the millstone of a third on, Brother! had hoped to, it is certainly worth noting party around his neck when he can es But that's the maddening part.